Sanford Speaks Out is the latest blog sensation written, edited and produced by Sanford D. Horn, a writer and educator. Sanford will write about issues of the day covering a myriad subjects: politics, education, culture, sports, religion and even food.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Not One Thin Dime - Enough is Enough

"Let us recollect that peace or war will not always
be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we
cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of
others." -- Alexander Hamilton

Not One Thin Dime – Enough is Enough

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

September 16, 2012

The Arab Spring has clearly morphed into the winter of
our discontent.

This is not going to be a political screed as both major
parties are complicit here. Both the Democrats and the Republicans continue
doling out money like Halloween treats to countries far and wide who neither
appreciate the assistance nor defend to their own people the veracity of its importance.

If the past week of tragedy, terror, and tumult in Egypt,
Libya, Tunisia, Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, and Bangladesh have not driven home the
message that no amount of money or foreign aid will appease the savages that
run amok in the name of a faith that, to all evidence, is clearly no religion
of peace, then it is time to raise the financial and cultural white flags.

For all his insanity and inanities over the years, US
Rep. Ron Paul (?-TX) actually got this one correct: make foreign countries earn
the generous largesse provided by the United States. All countries should start
at zero dollars and let them make their case before Congress and the State
Department for any aid they think they deserve.

One would think members of Congress would be tripping all
over themselves for the chance to sponsor such budget cutting legislation,
especially when it would not involve eliminating any precious entitlements of
which Democrats are so fond, or any Republican-sponsored tax cuts.

Use Ross Perot-style charts if it will help, but make no
mistake, reprobate nations will not see one thin dime of American dollars, nor
will nations that support those rogue miscreants. Nor should they. They don’t
like the United States and they are not going to like the United States just
because they are given financial aid. Or worse, military aid that such nations
ultimately turn against their donors. Is the US buying intelligence? If so, how
reliable could the intelligence be when soldiers trained by the US become
insurgents, turning those weapons against those who trained those troops?

“We’re losing soldiers in Afghanistan to rogue forces –
this is what Israel goes through every day,” said Douglas Brinkley, Rice
University professor and presidential historian. “We cannot count on host
countries protecting our property,” said Brinkley. “We have to do it ourselves.”
(American embassies overseas are American property.)

Sanctions certainly have not worked against countries
like Iran, as they continue to press forward with their nuclear warfare designs
in an effort to fulfill their promise of eradicating Israel from the map.

There is a “moment of truth coming on Iran,” said Senator
Joseph Lieberman (I-CT). The Middle East wants US leadership and the US must
show strength and leadership, Lieberman continued, adding that “we either
accept a nuclear Iran or act militarily. We have to deal with Iran in a very
tough way.”

It is not only foolish to capitulate, hand-wring,
supplicate, or genuflect to and before people who neither like nor respect the
United States, it has proven deadly, witness the murder of an American
ambassador and three of his colleagues this week alone.

Appeasement did not work for British Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain in 1938 with Hitler, and today the United States is dealing
with an enemy with more patience, more people (over one billion), better
intelligence, technology, and firepower than the Nazis could ever have
fathomed.

This is not the Cold War fought against the former Soviet
Union, flexing muscles and backing down a la the Cuban Missile Crisis of October
1962 because the United States was dealing with an enemy who also wanted to
live. That was a battle for spheres of influence between capitalism and democracy
versus communism – a battle of differing political and economic philosophies. The
Domino Theory was all the rage.

Such politics and economics are subject to metamorphosis over
time. How many strident communist nations still exist? Cuba? Angola? North
Korea? Anyone looking to move to any of those despotic locales anytime soon?
Even China is moving, ever so slowly, toward a pseudo-capitalism. The United
States does business with Vietnam these days, which, while objectionable, is a
matter for another column.

Today’s “dominos” will not be bought off with aid –
financial, military or otherwise.

Eradicating this problem is simple. Pull all American
servicemen and women from these rogue nations. Encourage all students and
tourists to return home to the United States as quickly as possible. Advise
American citizens not to visit or conduct business with rogue nations or the
nations supporting the enemies of the United States. Hit them where they will
feel it – in their economies. Yes, that includes any oil producing countries as
well. Further, freeze any governmental assets miscreant countries have in the
United States.

The current war, and it is a war, has been waged by a group
of savage fanatics and zealots blindly following religious dicta and dogma commanding
its adherents to kill so-called infidels such as Jews and Christians, commanding
that female adulterers be put to death, commanding that homosexuals be put to
death, that converts away from this venal faith be put to death. Their
treatment of women is abominable at best.

The savages who make headlines on a daily basis burning
American flags, attacking embassies, murdering innocent Americans, chanting
death to Israel, death to America, are now clamoring “Obama, Obama, there are still
a billion Osamas.” (www.drudge.com)

Terrorists only understand fear and violence, and they
should be met with the same if not worse. They kill four Americans, the US
strikes back by killing 4,000 of their people. This may sound harsh to American
sensibilities and the media would lose their minds over such a plan of attack,
but fire must be fought with fire as the alternatives have proven a
catastrophic failure.

Terrorists need only be accurate once. “Our vigilance has
to be every day,” said Brinkley.

In order to be acutely vigilant, the United States needs
deft leadership and the mechanisms in which to defend the nation and its people
both at home and abroad.